I've been forgetting to do this so... just in case y'all didn't know, I DO NOT OWN ANYTHING YOU RECOGNISE!!!! *looks around* did I spell that right? *blink blink*
Paw Print: The End of Us
Chapter 4: Hearing the History
By: Anaea
The use of the Pack left me feeling giddy and too energetic. I'd have to run....
The pups behind me began shifting and I ran to their side.
Bran watched as the pups' bodies bubbled, as though something were boiling underneath.
The girl raced and began petting them, cooing softly, and the small creatures began yipping and growling softly; almost playfully.
When the hair on their bodies began receding into their bodies, Bran turned almost immediately to his Elder son.
Samuel gawked at the shifting little bodies.
After a minute the pups were replaced by four toddlers.
Three of them were boys and there was one little girl.
Two of the boys and the girl had skin the color of a brand-new penny. The one who'd been a dark-gray pup had dark brown hair and light brown -almost gold- eyes. The other boy -who'd been a black, brown-undersided pup with black eyes and an almost sliver tip at his tail- had brown eyes and black hair. And the girl -who'd had a light brown coat, four white feet and different colored eyes- had dirty blond hair: her left eye was blue and her right a light brown-gray.
The last boy had chocolate-brown skin, darker then his siblings, black eyes, and black hair.
They must've been no older than three or four months, the pups. But they seemed to be around two or three years old now. They were beautiful....
Both he and his wolf agreed for the first time since Mercy first appeared in their lives that there was hope after all.
Finally, after a few minutes, I managed to make them stand and walk on two legs instead of four. They caught on quickly enough... unfortunately we were still stuck in a cage with four werewolves. Regardless of whether or not they helped me heal, they still brought me here. I herded the pups towards the door, making sure to never show them my back. When I got to the door though I found it locked.
"Any particular reason I being held here?" I asked, turning to glare at them.
One of them took out some sort of handheld contraption and spoke into it. The thing spoke back...
'Magic?' Cuan asked me.
I shook my head, "science," I spat. Science was bad. At least Magic depended on the user and its purpose. I'd never had an encounter with science that I'd enjoyed. It was blasphemous! Brother Earth wanted to be allowed its secrets, and humans kept tearing down his defenses and exposing more and more of his soul!
I heard someone moving on the other side of the door and jumped away so that both it and the werewolves were in my sight.
With ease the Cuan (light-brown eyes), Faolan (brown eyes), Maccon (black eyes), and Felan (one blue eye, one gold) also jumped, covering the five feet as effortlessly as I had.
When the door opened, the scent of human preceded the man who stepped inside. He gave the room a once over, as though surprised that it wasn't in shambles.
"Well," he said, "Number 1 survived. Good." With that he turned and looked at me. His gaze traveled along my body, up and down and I growled. He smiled. Jerk.
The sandy-haired man, who was also the smallest of the three males, stepped forward, "that's enough Matthew. Thank you for opening the door. You may go now." He spoke. It was a request in its wording, and a command in tone. Luckily, the human knew better that to challenge him: he turned, and walked out of the room, leaving the door ajar behind him.
Before I could take off, the cinnamon wolf, now a definite Native American of some sort, spoke, "Perhaps you might like some food, before you go."
If I'd been the only one there, I would've rudely declined, despite the fact that I knew they wouldn't take no for an answer. But I had four pups with me, none of whom had eaten solid food in almost two days.
But regardless of their hunger, they looked at me and didn't interrupt.
"Lead the way," I told the man's feet. He and his mate walked out.
"Da, Samuel, you coming?" He spoke again, asking them to follow him.
They did.
And I walked behind them, the pups tailing me, abruptly shifting to my original form after taking my first step outside: the change was complete before my foot hit the ground. And the pups were walking on four feet soon after. So I walked after them. If I wanted to, I could probably outrun them, but there was no way that I could take all four pups with me. And I couldn't be openly hostile because if a fight broke out, I knew I could not take them. Odds were also in their favor.
So, tail pointing straight out, parallel to the ground, ears pulled back, I cut my eyes at them and followed.
We entered the house a few minutes after everyone else, and I instantly knew it belonged to the one called 'Bran;' mainly because it smelled like him. Beige walls, black and brown furniture. Eh, I'd seen better. And worse. Unfortunately, the thought didn't distract me from the fact that Samuel was behind me, closing the door.
We followed the other three; the pups walked under and in front of me, shielded from sight of the man behind me.
When we walked into what I assumed was the kitchen I saw that another female had joined the werewolves. And Bran had just finished telling her that the pups and I all had human forms. He had probably already told her everything else. One good sniff and I knew she was his mate.
... Lovely....
She looked at me and I immediately smelled her hatred and envy. Something about the look in her eye told me that if I wasn't careful, she'd steal a pup. An instant later I was crouched over the pups, snarling at her.
"Leah, I need to speak to her." Bran said to his mate, and I disliked him a bit less for it.
"Then speak," she replied, not taking her eyes off the pups. "What does she want for them?"
The response was immediate; Bran was on his feet, the cinnamon wolf said, "what!?" incredulous, the other female tensed, and Samuel stepped up beside me, flexing his hands as though wishing they had claws and not fingers.
There was two seconds of silence, before power swept everywhere around us, coming from Bran.
The taste it left in my mouth was one that I had felt before. It was a combination of two things. Marrok... and Guardian....
I let my magic sweep through the room, shielding myself, the pups, as well at the other three werewolves; but also made the layer of magic subtle enough that Bran would either not see it as a challenge, or not sense it at all.
This woman had never learned any sort of respect... she disrespected my brother's pups in the most horrible of ways!
Bran quickly covered the few feet separating him from his mate. This was the last straw, even his wolf wanted to howl in shame.
Leah felt her mate's power like the harshest of gales. She turned to him only to have her head snap back with a resounding *slap* when Bran's open hand made contact with her face.
The order was silent, but apparently Leah knew better than to ignore it again. Her eyes scanned the room again and she glared at me, as though it had been my fault she'd gotten herself in trouble.
He turned to where I was, still crouched over the pups, snarling and growling at anything and everything. "It's alright," he said, "we aren't interested in your young." A lie so obvious the pups began moving back.
I barked angrily. I hated liars!
My ears stood straight up, my hair bristled, and my back arched.
"Fine, we are interested, but we won't rob you of them."
This time he spoke truth so I moved next to the pups, though I still kept myself between them and the others.
Anna looked in my direction and slowly lowered herself to the ground, sitting down so her eyes were level with mine. And Charles began looking around inside a large steel box.
'Refrigerator, used to store food.' My eyes drifted to the side where the voice came from. The same Shade who'd stopped me from going to avenge my kin sat there next to me.
"Brother?' I asked. And in response he gave me a wolfish grin.
'The Moon decided I should join the Pack, since you would miss me more than anyone else.'
'What form did the Pack take with you?' I asked.
His head cocked to the side and his tongue hung to the side, as he gave the wolf-version of a chuckle, 'Mum's gran'mum.'
For a second I simply looked at him, too many questions racing through my head for me to voice them. Finally I managed to shake my thoughts and simply said, 'sounds interesting.'
After the pups and I had eaten - something which seemed to amuse, but also unsettle, the werewolf males and intrigued the female because I chewed the pieces of raw steak and the pups ate it like that - Anna persuaded us to accept some T-Shirts to wear, and we were all in human form, we sat at the table. Bran sat at the head of the table, Samuel at his left, Charles at his right and Anna on Charles' right.
"Who, exactly, are you?" Bran said; his voice strong, his tone suspicious.
"My name b- is Adalwolfa, born Mórríghan. These are Felan," I motioned to the girl, "Maccon," I pointed to the darker-skinned boy, who was sitting on my lap, "Faolan," the boy next to me waved at Anna and jumped behind me when she smiled, "and the last one is Cuan, now Convel."
The golden-eyed boy beamed at me; his eyes shinning with joy. All four of their birth names simply meant 'little wolf' in one way or another, his new name meant 'wolf warrior.'
When I became silent again my wilder cousins exchanged looks before Samuel spoke, "what was that magic? Back in the motel?"
"That was the Pack," I responded, calmly. I shut my eyes, allowing my nose and ears to show me things instead.
"You have a pack?" now it was back to Bran.
"Not a pack, the Pack." When I smelled their slight –or in Anna's case, not so slight- confusion, I elaborated, "it is the general term of my people, for magic commanded by the Alpha."
I knew exactly what they were going to ask before Bran asked it, "a female as Alpha?"
I couldn't help it though, my eyes snapped open and I grinned at him showing him all my teeth, "Yes, Females can be, and have been Alphas. My mother's Grandmother was one of the greatest Alphas, she led my people for over eleven hundred years, and under her we thrived. If not for the Curse, you'd probably have some female Alphas as well; perhaps you might've even been dethroned by one." My answer was sharp, but I needed him to ask the right questions, and without meaning to, my last statement had come out in a mixture of Welsh and Old English. Damn… so much for getting them to ask the right questions.
"What curse?" Bran yelled. He was now leaning forward on the table, his palms flat on it, fingers curled; like claws.
One of my eyebrows rose and I tensed up. He must be pretty old if he knew Old English the way I spoke it. But he was pretty stupid if he tried to make me talk by frightening the Little Ones; now all four of them were behind me. I threw one nasty look at him before getting out of the chair I was in, gathering the pups and walking out of the room.
I returned a few minutes later, and the pups weren't with me.
I sat down, took a deep breath, "If you raise your voice in the presence of the Little Ones again, I will not help you with the upcoming War." I spoke, looking him straight in the eye. Challenging, yet not threatening in my tone. When he sat back, I could still see the harshness in his gaze, but with the Pack and my Brother's spirit backing me up I didn't see him as a threat.
Samuel cleared his throat, taking over for his father, "Would you mind telling us about the curse you spoke of?"
I gave him a small smile before closing my eyes, leaning back on the chair, and telling them what they wished to know.
"The Curse, the Magic used by a family of witches over ten-thousand years ago.
The Magic, the Spell, the Curse, which separated the Soul and the Beast:
Making Lycanthropy nothing more than a virus; consuming Humans, killing them slowly, but not freeing them.
A Magic my people were not strong enough to combat, for all that we were able to re-direct it.
Every one of you here… every Werewolf everywhere, is related by blood.
To find the connection you might have to go back as many as fifty generations, maybe even more, but you are all related.
You are all descendants of my people.
We –that is, my people- redirected the Curse so that it would only take fruit in the people who'd be most likely to be able to control the Beast.
That is why mauling anyone who isn't a descendant of my people –or whose blood has rejected their heritage- kills them."
I opened my eyes and looked at each one of them… they didn't seem very happy… specially Bran.
"Ten-Thousand years and we're only just finding out about it?" He growled.
I quirked an eyebrow, "would it have made a difference?" The knowledge would have benefited them little, and comforted even less.
Before Bran could say something else, Charles spoke, "What about this war you mentioned?"
I closed my eyes again and began speaking again.
"Once my kin redirected the Curse, We set out to both kill the witches and to kill the Seven Siblings –who were the first werewolves.
We succeeded in banishing the witches to the Other Side, but were unable to truly kill them.
The Beasts… The Beasts are a different story entirely.
My… what you call a pack… consisted of over three hundred wolves we hunted down four of the Siblings, one after another, but not only did the last three stick together, but even with all of my family fighting, the four Beasts we slew managed to kill all but ten of us.
So we went back to what is now Ireland and remained there, mostly, for the past seven thousand years.
About fifty years ago, the wind brought my brother a message, the witches had freed themselves. Not only that, but they'd also hunted down the remaining Siblings.
A month ago, the withes ambushed my brother and the rest of our pack when they'd gone to investigate a disturbance. I was left behind to guard the Den.
The witches ordered the Siblings to attack, and they did.
The four pups and I are the last of our kind.
The Witches, if their goal is still the same –and believe me they won't let something as trivial as ten thousand years in purgatory deter them- they'll try to undo the magic of the Pack.
And after that, they will be able to control all wolves, not just werewolves, but also carriers of the Wolfling-atavism. Their ultimate goal is to kill all Fae, by absorbing their magic, as well as the Gray Lords.
To break our spell, all they need is to kill every last True Wolfling.
As far as they know there is only one left: Me.
I had Faolan, the Tracker look for the scent of the only living Guardian.
What I didn't expect was to also find a Witch-Wolf, a Resistant, and a Treasure."
"Guardian? Treasure? Resistant and Witch-Wolf? What are those?" Charles asked.
I stared at him for a few seconds, and then looked at the others… how could they not know?
"Bran is the Guardian… I believe you call him a Berserker?" I looked at Samuel and he nodded. "Charles, you are the Witch-Wolf, even if your magic can't compare to a true witch. Samuel, wolves half your age have succumbed to the trials and harshness of time, you are Resistant. And lastly, Anna is an Omega, once called Treasure."
"Okay, I get the first three, but why treasure?" Anna asked.
"Your lineage, which connects you to Wolflings, consists of only women. Your mother's mother's mother's mother's mother's mother's… and so on. You are also the descendant of a Mother, the strongest, and fiercest, of all types of Wolflings. If someone were to endanger your mate, you would become something akin to a Berserker; except much stronger, faster, and vicious. It would be temporary, and you wouldn't be attacking everything in sight."
"How many types of Wolflings are there?" Bran asked.
I sighed; apparently they were done with the right questions, "Fangs, Trackers, Runners, Singers, Treasures, Guardians, Magicks, and Mothers. So… eight?" I mouthed the titles and counted my fingers… I never had been good with numbers….
Suddenly I gasped and ran out of the room, a moment later a shriek was heard and the others came out to the living room as well.
Sorry took a few days ^_^' bye